Inevitably, Nubi would find himself – mysteriously – underfoot in the midst of some mad dash to bring a meal together. His favorite assistance to the cook was to wait until the feet had stopped, then he would undertake a perfect, textbook flanking action before rubbing up against and then biting the cook’s toes. Repeatedly. Despite the flailing of arms and promises of pain and agony. Only when sprinkled with water would Nubi run from the kitchen, stop short under the dining room table, undertake a quick bath, and then return committed to his mission once again.

Many meals happened with Nubi at the center, which means of course that a great deal of my joy in the kitchen came from interactions with his good natured self and his insistence that whatever I was doing wasn’t nearly as important or fun as what he was doing. That, and I think he just enjoyed watching me attempt to steer my way around him while whisking egg whites, sauteing garlic, and sipping wine.

Nubi died this morning of a horrible, untreatable disease called feline infectious peritonitis (FIP). It was quick; he went from healthy to not in a short, short time. But, at only a year and half old, he was much too young to die the way he did; and I too close to handle it with anything other than grief and anger.

La Kasbah Restaurant

11424 Washington Plz W
Reston, VA 20191

There are, of course, hundreds of places for Northern Virginians to choose when contemplating dinner, or lunch, or even a coffee. The sad truth, of course, as any small restaurant owner will tell you, is that most of us will choose thickly populated areas with name brand eateries.

We are all the poorer for it.

Small places like La Kasbah, run passionately by people passionate about food and its power to bridge cultures, are always threatened by our own culture of mass undifferentiation. But despite this threat, and perhaps driven in some part by it, the passion at these places shines through in the food, in the service, in the attention to those little things that make a meal something more than an exercise in ‘filling the tank’. La Kasbah does all of these things brilliantly.

The food is classic, and I do mean classic, Moroccan. Chef “D” focuses on the most definable and fundamental flavors of the North African country with a sensualist’s appreciation of melt-off-the-bone lamb, flavors of raisins and nuts, citrus and ras el hanout. You can find kabobs of course, but also an exquisite lamb tagine, a variety of couscous, and more unusual dishes like an excellent chicken in confetti and green olives.

Although La Kasbah recently got their liquor license, the wine list, featuring both Moroccan specialties as well Italian, French, and new world bottles from California and elsewhere, has always had something to attract and hold my attention for a couple of hours. And, of course, if you cannot decide there is plenty of help available.

Yet, for all of this, La Kasbah, like so many equally good places, has to fight for every customer. And, in many cases, the reality is that it’s a losing fight. Were it located in the bustling streets of old Marrakesh, La Kasbah would be fantastically popular, but Lake Anne long ago lost out to Reston Town Center as the place to go, as the place to be. The crowds there, and the lines snaking out of restaurants serving much the same flavors in different packages, leaves little room for discovery. In Lake Anne, there is still the opportunity to be surprised. Pleasantly and extremely so, and nowhere more so than at La Kasbah.

12/15/2007

One in five Americans live on a diet of ten foods or fewer.

OK? Pretty horrifying, yes? But, wait, it gets better:

Among the most common choices? French fries, fried chicken, chocolate chip cookies, and Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

Now, it is possible to go on and on about how nice it must be in the Fat & Rich World to have a diet of ten foods, how it must be nice to have all that diversity. Fair enough. I’ll concede that, and more. But in the context of the United States, where the median income is $46,000 and 77% of us live in urban areas, something is horribly wrong if our fridges and cupboards hold nothing more than dehydrated cheese powder.

I am not a cook because I am a crusader for health (or, for that matter, the environment, whales, or gay rights), I am a cook because I believe in the power of food to expand our sense of who we are and where we are.

But this – whatever it is – isn’t healthy.

At the same time the Food Network is encouraging – successfully – thousands of people to stare slack jawed at the television, their brains spewing out the same alpha waves as they do when watching porn, as chef this-and-that gets her own show (and thousands, if not millions, of rabid fans), and as farmers’ markets explode in cities, suburbia, and exurbia (what we used to call “the country”), we discover how very little all that exertion really matters. Of course, only in the byzantine recesses of this nation’s educational bureaucracy does food ever correlate with statistics, and only then in terms of mouths to feed. But something is going on here.

It goes beyond the simple jeremiads about convenience, mechanization, the disconnect between food and land, economic, cultural, or racial proclivities, or media. But where isn’t clear. We’ve got to figure it out unless we be reduced to the nutrient pastes of science fiction: a single food applied quickly, leaving room only for the future.